Awards

WK Rose Fellowship awarded to Shruti Swamy '07

The WK Rose Committee is pleased to announce that Shruti Swamy ’07, a writer, who completed her degree in English at Vassar, is the recipient of the WK Rose Fellowship this year.

While the committee was impressed by all of the short stories Ms. Swamy submitted, they found in particular "Brother" and "Black Dog" to be exceptional. The English faculty on the committee aptly voiced the committees’ overall intimations about these:

"There's something powerfully elemental in Shruti Swamy's work, as if she has forged oil, salt, ashes, blood into propulsive narratives that unfold with all the ferocious, ambiguous logic of dreams. There are many disconcerting surprises here, almost all of them in the end persuasive. The emotional pitch ranges from intense to intenser; the prose is precise and unblinking while at the same time marvelously lyrical and evocative."

As Ms. Swamy wrote in her application, "writing takes a double courage, the courage to sit down every day and write honestly about the things you care about and to put your best work out in the world again and again, in the face of rejection-to be the champion of your own work."

The committee is happy that this is one time Ms. Swamy won't have to face rejection and instead, through Mr. Rose's generosity, will receive some much-needed time and assistance to pursue the creative gift she possesses in abundance.